Best materials

Discussion of model railway baseboard design and construction
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rosschris10
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Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2015 1:39 pm

Best materials

Post by rosschris10 »

Hi all now Xmas is over time to start my layout in the spare room. I am thinking of building my base boards in sections round the room so would be 8 sections at 1200x600

What's the best timber to use in the gram is it 2x1 and what's best sheet material. Also how far apart should I use spacers underneath for support
pete12345

Re: Best materials

Post by pete12345 »

Good choice to go around the walls rather than plonk a table in the middle of the room- much more usable space this way round.

The basic 2x1 frame with a sheet material top surface works well enough for most situations. Some materials such as chipboard are more self-supporting than others, so you can get away with a wider spacing of supports. 9mm plywood is probably the best material to use for the top surface, though I've also used 12mm MDF. I'd use a frame pattern based on a 400x300 grid:
frame plan.jpg
frame plan.jpg (11.55 KiB) Viewed 3877 times
This type of baseboard doesn't easily allow construction much below ground level. For shallow excavations such as a stream, you can sometimes arrange to cut out a section of the top surface and fix another piece underneath. For something like an embankment or bridge over a low-level road/urban area, an option is to lower the whole section of board, and build up from there to track level.
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GeraldH
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Re: Best materials

Post by GeraldH »

I'd go with ply for the top rather than MDF. MDF is not as strong, not great with trackpins and I don't think the dust is particularly healthy.
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b308
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Re: Best materials

Post by b308 »

Chris, can I suggest that you do a search on this section of the Forum otherwise we'll end up repeating the same old argument about what is the best surface material! It has been discussed at great length in the past and the general conclusion is that everyone has their own favourite and no-one can agree! ;)

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Re: Best materials

Post by RAF96 »

And that's without getting into what is the best layout height.
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